He wrote the last letter.

I'm a bad correspondent, you know, and as I had no good news to write, I did not think it worth while to bother him.

I don't know where he is since he quit being governor." There was a sudden lifting of Ethie's head, a quick arching of her eyebrows, which told that the governor part was news to her.

Then she asked, quietly, "Has he been governor ?" "Yes, Governor of Iowa; and James' wife lived with him.

She was Melinda Jones." "Yes, yes," and Ethie's foot beat the carpet thoughtfully, while her eyes were cast-down, and the great tears gathered slowly in the long-fringed lids, then they fell in perfect showers, and laying her head in Aunt Barbara's lap she sobbed piteously.
Perhaps she was thinking of all she had thrown away, and weeping that another had taken the post she would have been so proud to fill.